


Through the Ice Darkly

by chuffystilton



Series: through the ice darkly [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Biopunk, M/M, Mystery, Role Reversal, Southern Water Tribe, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26913250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuffystilton/pseuds/chuffystilton
Summary: “You know what I think? I think we both hold different pieces of the same puzzle, and we can only solve it if we work together. You and I – we’re on the opposite sides of a century-long mystery.”“We’re also on the opposite sides of a war,” Zuko said drily.Sokka flapped a hand. “Small details.”“Not to the people you invaded.”A century after the Northern Water Tribe attacked, two years after the Avatar’s sudden emergence from the ice and snow – why does the world feel more unbalanced than ever? Zuko and Azula are on the quest for an answer.
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: through the ice darkly [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044552
Comments: 66
Kudos: 365





	Through the Ice Darkly

**Author's Note:**

> Previous knowledge of Legend of Korra helps, but it’s not necessary. In fact, it may even be better.
> 
> [NOW AVAILABLE AS A PODFIC](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111079), read by the extraordinarily lovely [MyZinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyZinger/pseuds/MyZinger). [[link here]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111079)

_“If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends, too?”_

_("The Blue Spirit”, Season 1 Episode 13)_

* * *

He was dreaming again.

_A wide plain, dusted with snow. A sky above him swirling with undulating pathways of light, ribbons of green and violet._

_He walked through limitless emptiness, alone._ _A winged lemur skimmed overhead, chirped, then flew on. He followed. They came to a_ _copse of trees, and he pushed his way through, chasing the flashes of the lemur's striped tail between the bare brambles and the skeletal branches. A column of white, unnatural light pierced through the middle of the trees. Its source was a glowing pond. He came to the edges and dropped to his knees; the lemur, on the ice, brushed aside the snow with its claws._

_“Where are we?” Zuko asked, but he already knew._

_The lemur chirped again, more urgently this time, and Zuko saw how s_ _omething was trapped under the ice. He tried to summon his fire, but nothing came. Desperate, he grabbed a rock and banged it against the ice, again and again._ _A flying dark shape came from the trees, neither animal nor machine, a kite-shaped creature that snapped at Zuko’s hands and face with sharp teeth. He tried to bat it away, tried to concentrate on his task, but his attacker would not stop, and it was painful, so painful…_

_Zuko cried out, and the ice cracked. The dream turned into a nightmare._

_Someone pushed him from behind, and he pitched forwards, plunging headfirst into the freezing water. The cold sharp shock made him gasp; water rushed into his open mouth, entering his lungs. Zuko tried to swim upwards, but the surface of the water had frozen over again. He banged on the ice in a panic, trying to melt his way through, but still, his fire would not come._ _He struggled, heart racing. There was darkness creeping up the sides of his vision; he was losing consciousness. The last thing he did, before it all went black, was reach out for something, another limp human figure in the water –_

_And then they both sank down –_

_– and down_

_\- and down until they landed on a torn-up hill, the smell of mud and shit and terror all around them. Frightening creatures, all scales and wings and razor-sharp beaks, flapped above them, screeching. People were screaming. Zuko, trembling, rolled over and looked down at the person he was trying to save. He brushed a hand over a head of dark hair, and his hand came away caked with blood. He looked down, saw the unseeing gold eyes the exact same shade as his own – and now he was screaming too._ _He went on screaming for a long time, until the thumping noises drowned him out._

安

Zuko opened his eyes and blinked in the darkness. The thumping noise was coming from the wall beside his head. Someone was banging on it with all their might. That was the noise that had woken him.

“I’m alright,” he whispered. He tapped on the wall in acknowledgement. “Just another dream. Go back to sleep, Azula.”

There was a pause, and then another thump. Then silence.

Zuko sat up on his cot, making his heavy chains jingle. Despite the very real cold around him, he was sweating like he was running a fever. He wiped his face with the dirty hem of his tunic, and winced when the metal cuffs bit into the raw skin at his wrists. But the pain was good; it cut through the confusion in his mind and brought him back to reality. This cell was real. The moonlight coming through his window was real. Their current predicament was real. His dreams – well. Who could say?

He closed his eyes again, but sleep didn’t return for the rest of the night. 

安

At this point in the winter, deep as they were in the heart of the Southern Water Tribe territories, only a few precious hours of sunlight came through Zuko and Azula’s cell windows every day. They were the only people in this part of the prison, and the comings and goings of the sun was the only diversion that broke the dreary monotony of their days. They spent their time like two cats, following the faint patch of light around their cell. Once the sunlight was gone, they spent the long nights either sleeping and meditating (Azula) or else brooding silently at the wall (Zuko). 

Zuko only knew what his sister was up to by eavesdropping on the prison guards’ conversation. They were in adjoining cells, out of sight from one another, which made it impossible for him to see her hands for signing. He could talk to _her_ , but Azula had made it abundantly clear beforehand that someone like Zuko should keep his mouth shut as much as possible while they were in enemy territory. Their guards didn’t seem to be paying much attention, but it was always better to be cautious. 

As usual, Zuko deferred to his sister on these things. He spent his days saying nothing, staring at the wall, trying to ignore the bone-aching cold radiating from the floor, the walls, the small barred windows that let in the whistling wind. Everything was cold here. He should be following Azula's example: sleeping or meditating too to conserve his energy, but Zuko was too agitated to sleep and too bored to meditate. But there was always plenty to brood over, so he brooded instead. Sometimes he tormented himself by wondering what Iroh must be doing at that moment, back home in the Fire Nation. They had left without saying goodbye in person; Azula had been wary that their uncle would stop them.

The decision seemed wise at the time, but Zuko deeply regretted it now. If they died here, would Iroh ever know? 

It wasn’t an idle question: Zuko and his sister _were_ slowly dying. If they weren’t firebenders, they’d be dead already. Zuko couldn't tell if the prison was specially cooled, or if it was just left deliberately unheated, but it took most of his energy keeping his core temperature up high enough to stay alive. Another week or two of this, with nothing to eat but bowls of thin porridge – sooner or later, even Azula would be pushed past the brink of exhaustion, and then…

And then what? Their corpses get dumped into the sea for the dolphin-piranhas? But if the Southern Water Tribe wanted them dead, why weren’t Zuko and Azula dead already? They must be kept alive for a reason, but why? 

Maybe this was a form of punishment for what Azula did to the waterbenders who captured them. The waterbenders succeeded in the end, obviously, but the few that could still walk must have walked away with some very interesting lightning scars. Maybe death by hypothermia was the Southern Water Tribe's idea of poetic revenge.

These kind of thoughts only made Zuko wish harder that he was in the cell across from Azula’s. Even five minutes of talking with her would settle the noisy swirls of doubt and dread in his mind. The worst part about his imprisonment – other than the cold and the hunger and the real possibility of death – was being trapped in a small room with nothing but his own thoughts going around and around in his head. It was the most effective form of torture he could think of. 

The sound of footsteps came down the stone hallway. Shift change. Zuko almost smiled. Lucky him.

In addition to the chains on their hands and feet, Zuko and Azula were under a two-men watch at all times. Shift change time came three times a day, when two new guards came to replace the two current ones. Zuko was so bored he would have even accepted a bit of jeering or bullying to liven up his days, but their guards never spoke to them. They spent most of their time huddling over a spluttering stove thirty or forty paces away, around the corner of the open doorway where the heat would not reach the cells. They approached their prisoners only at mealtimes, and the rest of the time they stayed silent too, or else talked only to each other in hushed voices. 

But here was a fact: heat rises, cold sinks. A clever firebender, even one who was half-frozen, could figure out how change the airflow of a room by heating up the air in selective areas. Zuko couldn’t do it as precisely as an airbender could, moving the air itself, but he could do it just well enough to create an imperceptible breeze, just enough so he could steal snatches of conversation from people who thought they couldn’t be overheard. Expanding unnecessary energy was the last thing Zuko should be doing, but once the sun was gone, the guards’ gossip was the only halfway interesting thing in the tedium of the long winter nights. It wasn’t much entertainment, but it was something. It was better than listening to his own thoughts.

He cocked an ear, lifted a palm, and concentrated.

The men were exchanging short greetings. “It’s as cold as a grave out there, isn’t it?” said one of them.

Zuko recognised the voice: it belonged to a squat man with a wide, round face the colour of a toasted walnut. He looked as if he could be friendly, except he ducked his head down whenever he delivered the meals, as if he was afraid of looking Zuko in the face.

Fair enough. The scar on Zuko’s left eye was more or less objectively gruesome. 

“Any trouble with the prisoners?” asked one of the new guards. Zuko recognised this voice too, a slightly older man with a missing front tooth. He had a habit of clearing his throat every few minutes like he suffered from a perpetual cold. 

“No,” said Walnut-Face Man. “The girl’s sleeping like she always does; the boy spends his time staring at nothing. Nothing to report.” 

He and his partner were making noises like they were getting ready to leave, but the Throat-Clearing Man stopped them with – what else? – a clearing of the throat. “Don’t go so fast, you’re being put on double shifts. We need all four of us here to open the cell doors.”

“Open the cell doors?” asked a third voice, someone Zuko didn’t recognise. 

“Hakoda’s son is coming, he wants to take one of them out.”

“Why?” 

There was no audible answer, but presumably Throat-Clearing Man made some gesture, because Walnut-Face sighed. “The two of them are in bad shape,” he said. “What could he want with either of them?”

“Maybe it’s the exotic appeal,” said the fourth guard. “The boy’s disfigured, but the girl would be a looker if she got a good wash. Have you noticed the eyes?”

“They’re both too dangerous to move,” argued Walnut-Face. "Even for four people present."

“So? Who knows what the people in charge are thinking at any given time?” 

“The Avatar knows,” said Throat-Clearing Man in an ironic tone. he sounded like he was giving the tired punchline of a tired joke.

All of them gave perfunctory chuckles.

“The Avatar knows because the Avatar tells them what to think,” said Walnut-Face, and the other three stopped laughing. Someone shushed him; he protested, but then someone else brought out a dice and knucklebone set and the topic turned away to other matters. A heavy clunking sound rang out; more fuel was being added to the stove, Zuko guessed. The guards were settling in for their wait. 

When it was clear nothing more interesting than petty complaints about the canteen was forthcoming, Zuko dropped his hands and sat down again on the rough bench that served as his cot. His chains jingled as he drew his knees up. _Hakoda’s son._ He searched his memory – he had a good grasp of Northern Water Tribe bloodlines, but his knowledge of the Southern Water Tribe was somewhere between spotty and non-existent. He’d seen plenty of their sailors and traders in the southern ports, but those men kept to themselves and rarely spoke except to other Water Tribesmen. A century of isolationism made their society a cipher to outsiders. Hakoda had a daughter, didn’t he? And everyone knew about _her_. But a son? 

...and what did he want with Zuko and Azula? The guards had their own ideas, which sounded distasteful, but also reassuring and understandable, in a horrible way. What was worse, Hakoda’s son coming because he wanted a tumble with some prisoners, or him coming because he suspected something about Zuko and Azula’s mission?

Was that even possible? Only Iroh would know where they were right now; no one in their village even knew they were leaving. The moment they crossed the border, Zuko and Azula had cut their hair and burned their old clothes, replacing them with Earth Kingdom-style tunics and cropped hair. There was no way to disguise the burn on Zuko’s face, but Azula purchased a wool scarf that at least hid the white scars on her throat. Their story had been that they were two sibling tea traders heading south with their stock, and if anyone pointed out their yellow eyes, they would claim a Fire Nation mother and an Earth Kingdom father. A soldier, perhaps: one of the many who spent a few silver pieces on the native women and left the evidence of their pleasure running around harbour cities like unwanted stray dogs. But no one had asked anything. Zuko and Azula spoke to no one; stuck to Fire Nation ghettoes when they went into towns for supplies; never even firebended in public. They couldn’t avoid bending the night they were captured, but other than that, there was nothing to give them away or betray their goal. They had nothing incriminating on them.

Or at least, Azula didn’t. 

Not for the first time, Zuko cursed his own sentimentality. And then he cursed the world in general.

“Azula?” he whispered, pitching his voice low enough so the guards wouldn’t hear. “Are you awake? This is important.”

There was a tap on the wall. The two of them had settled on a system on their first night of imprisonment. One tap for yes, two taps for no.

There was a single tap now. _Yes._

“Have you ever heard anything about Chief Hakoda having a son? Could _she_ have a brother?”

Two taps. _No._

“Well, he exists, apparently, and he’s coming for us. Do you think he suspects something?” 

Three taps. _I don’t know_.

安

Zuko lost track of time while he waited. 

Sometimes, when his old fears and anxieties bubbled over in his brain like over-boiled porridge, Zuko distracted himself by thinking about home. He tried to picture every detail in his mind and hold it as long as possible. He began by picturing the tall mountains of Hira'a, then the tea farms, and then the cool mist in the mornings that moved over the tea plants and left strings of diamonds glistening on the spider-fly webs. He imagined their farmhouse itself, nestled in the shallow green valley. He conjured it plank-by-plank, concentrating on every detail: the leaky roof, the big copper pot hanging in the kitchen, the smell of lemons and ash. And then the garden in front, the vegetable patch with its neat rows of cabbages and amaranth; the bamboo trellises Zuko had built for the cucumbers and beans; the big chestnut tree in the back, under whose shade Iroh had placed the two altars for memorialising the dead.

That was the clearest memory of all, heavy with the weight of Zuko's love and grief. The day before his departure, Zuko had gone for one last walk through the mountains and brought back a basket of wild persimmons. He left a few in front of the first altar, spat on the ground in front of the second, and took the rest of his pickings into the kitchen. He had meant to hang them up and dry them, a parting gift for the man who raised Zuko and his sister. A gift for Iroh to remember him by while he was away. Zuko had even entertained a foolish hope that he’d be back by the time the persimmons were ready for eating: midwinter, when the sugars bloomed across the dark skins like frost. But then Azula found out what he was planning and demanded to come along too, and in the ensuing chaos Zuko had forgotten about the persimmons altogether. Unless Iroh had sorted them out – and Zuko doubted that – the fruit would have long rotted by now. Disappointing, but not surprising. Zuko was forever letting his uncle down, in all the big ways as well as the small. 

A sudden commotion. Even without firebending tricks, Zuko could hear the scraping of chairs against the stone floor as the four guards got up and put their dice away. People were talking, and then – more footsteps, headed towards the cells.

Zuko scrambled as close to the iron bars as he could get. There was a man walking towards them, flanked by the retinue of guards. Two of them were in front and the other two of them were behind, and the man himself was a shadowy figure in the middle, his face obscured by a blue helmet shaped to look like a wolf’s head. Trailing them was a slobbering beast on a braided leash: large, four-legged, bizarre like all the other Water Tribe animals were. Its snout and ears were canine-like, but the animal was covered with shimmering scales instead of fur, with long hind legs and a ridge of upright scales running down its back. It noticed Zuko’s staring and gave a bark, then shook itself, the scales on its back lifting up to form lethal-looking spikes. Zuko had never seen anything like it before, not even on the battlefields of Ba Sing Se. It was almost enough to distract him from Hakoda's son, coming to stand directly in front of Zuko's cell.

“Which one do you want?” asked Throat-Clearing Man, and the wolf helmet tilted to one side. 

“The girl, I guess. But let me talk to her first.”

“She doesn’t talk,” interjected another guard. “She’s a mute. There’s some sort of damage to her throat.”

Hakoda’s son made a petulant noise. “Why hadn’t someone told me that before? That’s quite a big detail to leave off the incident reports, isn’t it?” He tapped his chin, and then clicked his fingers like he had just made his mind up about something. “Never mind, let me talk with the boy then.” 

He stepped closer towards Zuko’s cell and raised the lantern in his hand. An arc of light illuminated his face behind the helmet, and Zuko looked at it directly, unwilling to show intimidation of any sort. The two of them were almost exactly the same height, and in the yellowish glow Zuko could make out a smooth brown cheek, a pair of murky-coloured eyes fringed with dark lashes that were as long and pretty as a girl’s. If it wasn’t for the heavy brow bone and the thick black eyebrows, the face as a whole could be as pretty as a girl's. Zuko gritted his teeth. Hakoda’s son was even younger than he had expected, maybe nineteen or twenty at the most, most likely even younger. Almost the exact same age as Zuko himself. It made the “boy” comment all the more insulting.

Hakoda's son spoke. His teeth were straight and white. “My name is Sokka, son of Hakoda and Kya,” he said. “What’s yours?” 

Zuko said nothing. 

The boy called Sokka turned and addressed the guards. “Is _he_ mute too?”

“No,” said Walnut-Face.

"Have you heard him talking?"

Walnut-Face looked uncomfortable. “He doesn’t say anything, but I’ve heard him screaming sometimes in the middle of the night. Nightmares, I think.”

“Ah,” Sokka said. “But as long as he’s not mute too...I wasn’t expecting such a huge scar, but he’s not so bad. Is he aggressive in any way? Can we open this door?”

The guards nodded their heads. Throat-Clearing Man took out the keyring. 

Sokka turned around again. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said to Zuko. “I’m even going to take you out of deep freeze. But remember, there’ll be armed guards close by at all times, and this little guy here–” he patted the animal beside him on its horrible scaled head “–he can take down enemies three times your size before breakfast. If you try something stupid, the only person you’ll hurt is yourself. Do you understand me?”

Zuko still said nothing.

The door swung open. Sokka sighed, and the thick black eyebrows knitted together. “He’ll have to do,” he told the guards. “Let's take him up, but make sure you keep the shackles on.”

Walnut-Face stepped forward, then hesitated. “Where exactly are we taking him?”

“My room, of course.”

It took real effort now for Zuko not to show fear or disgust on his face, or to blurt out any of the questions racing through his mind. He struggled to keep his expression impassive, as two of the guards marched in to unlock him from the iron rings hammered into the walls. They fitted his wrists and ankles into two lighter pairs of cuffs with a chain running between them. The cold metal burned.

“We’re going to take you out now,” Sokka said, as clearly and pleasantly as if he was talking to an old friend. “But remember that your friend is still down here. If you run, if you try something stupid – if you attack anyone in any way, if you even make a single spark – not only would you be punished, but the girl here would be too. If you want to save her, don’t do anything rash.” 

It was a potent threat. Gripping Zuko by the arms, Walnut-Face and his partner forced him out of the cell and down the passage, towards the doorway. The warning ringing in his mind, Zuko let himself be manhandled away. His only act of resistance was one last wild glance over his shoulder, at Azula’s cell. It would be the first time he saw her face in a week; he had never been kept apart from her for so long before.

Azula’s was pressed against her bars. Her cheeks were bloodless and her nose was chapped red from the cold, but her mouth was pressed in a fierce line and her gold eyes was glittering.

_Keep strong,_ she signed to him. _Trust nothing._

Sokka followed the direction of Zuko’s gaze and stopped in his tracks. He frowned, studying Azula, and she met him with her usual coolly superior expression. It was a feat to pull off chained up and dressed in filthy tatters, but she had years of experience giving that same look to Zuko. She didn’t need to speak out loud to make her message clear: everything and everyone else in the world was beneath her, Hakoda's son included. Zuko almost smiled; oddly satisfying to watch his sister infuriate someone else for once.

“Drop the temperature a bit more here,” Sokka said suddenly. “The girl doesn’t look so affected. I think there’s a chance she could still firebend.”

“ _No_!” Zuko shouted.

Everyone looked over, including Sokka’s leashed animal, who gave a whine.

Zuko’s voice was hoarse from disuse. He coughed and tried again. “No,” he said, quieter. “Please don’t make it any worse. She’s injured already. Please.” 

Azula shot him a look of pure disgust. She hated begging of any kind. Zuko ignored it. His sister was tough, but no one was tough enough to keep going like this. Azula had fought ferociously when they were captured, and there was no way the jets of water and flying chunks of ice didn’t bruise or break a rib, possibly several. Azula would never admit to any weakness, but even at a single glance Zuko could see her pain from the set of her shoulders, her exhaustion from the stiff movements of her uncharacteristically clumsy hands. 

“I give you my word that I won’t try anything,” Zuko said. “Please don’t lower the temperature any more.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow. “Swear on your honour then. I hear you guys take these things pretty seriously in the Fire Nation.” 

“I lost my honour a long time ago,” Zuko rasped. “But I swear it on something else, something more important – my father’s grave. I won't try anything. I won't fight.”

Sokka’s other eyebrow went up. He gave Zuko a hard, appraising stare, and then, suddenly, his whole face melted into a grin. He gestured for Zuko’s two guards to keep walking. “Deal. You don’t try to escape or attack anyone, and we won’t drop you two in a deeper freeze. You don’t do anything – we won’t do anything. Fair deal, right?”

Nothing about the world seemed fair to Zuko, but he bit his lip and lapsed back into silence. The guards pushed him down through the door, down another long hallway, and then Throat-Clearing Man produced a strip of cloth and tied it over Zuko’s eyes. Someone prodded Zuko to keep walking, and Zuko, blinded, his heart pounding with fear for his sister, could only obey.

安

They walked for a long time, and Zuko lost his sense of direction after the first few turns. He could hear the sound of trotting paws beside him, Sokka’s pet accompanying him as an extra precaution. There were a lot of steps at one point, and, weak as he was, Zuko stumbled a few times before the two guards grabbed his arms again and half-marched, half-carried him onwards. It was humiliating, but at least the air was getting warmer wherever they were going. He tried to count his steps, but lost count after the first thousand. At last they came to a stop. There was the jingle of keys, and then Zuko was pushed into a room. Someone ripped off his blindfold.

He blinked. 

There was a real fire burning in here, and for a long moment it was all Zuko could do not to run over and stick his face against the fireplace to soak up as much of its soothing heat as he could. 

Next to him, Sokka was speaking quietly to the guards. “I don’t want to be disturbed for the rest of the night. One of you can go down the kitchens and fetch the tray I ordered, and bring up something hot for yourselves as well. Wait for me outside, but not outside the door. Go farther down the hall.”

The guards protested, but Sokka shook his head.

“He gave his word he wouldn’t try anything, and Foo Foo here is worth ten men. And I can handle myself.” One of the guards muttered something under his breath, and Sokka huffed. “You’re welcome to stay in the room and watch then, Calak, if that’s what you’re into.”

The other guard, Throat-Clearing Man, snorted and jabbed his partner in the ribs. The two of them gave Sokka one last nod and then cleared out of the room. The door closed.

“Sit down,” Sokka said.

It was unclear which one of them he was talking to, Zuko or the fish-wolf-dog animal next to Zuko. Zuko stayed where he was. The animal lolled its tongue out and barked, giving Sokka a hopeful look. No matter how strange the animal was, a certain universal _dog_ quality shone through, and it made Sokka sigh and rummage through his pockets before pulling out a strip of jerky. He tossed it over and his pet snapped it out of the air, and then tackled his owner to snuffle through the rest of his pockets, looking for more treats.

"Unbelievable," Sokka said. "I'm out of seal jerky, alright? Give up!"

While Sokka tried in vain to subdue his pet, Zuko was looking around the room. Even if he swore he wouldn’t escape, an old instinct had him scanning the room for exits and weak points anyways. He hated to admit it, but the room was impressive. It was big, bigger than the whole farmhouse back in Hira’a, and it was panelled with timber and clay tiles, with strange animal hides and woven tapestries hung up on the walls. The decor wasn’t as extravagant as the Earth Kingdom manors that Zuko had seen, or even the old Fire Nation houses that only Northern waterbenders and their collaborators got to live in now, but nevertheless, Zuko could recognise the luxuries that marked it as the room of a chieftain’s son. The fire was burning real wood instead of pungent seaweed; the furniture was all good quality cherry, its rich grain shining with varnish. The rugs on the floors and walls had deceptively simple designs of waves and moons, but their simplicity only highlighted the quality of the hand-knotted wool and silk, which shone with a subtle and expensive sheen.

Everything here was no doubt shipped in at an enormous cost from farther north. All of it, by Zuko's judgment, pretty fire retardant. 

Next to him, Sokka finally placated his pet with some sort of chew toy. While the animal gnawed happily away on its strip of knotted dried leather, its owner took off his helmet and pulled off his parka. Zuko glanced over. He was expecting – he wasn’t sure what, exactly – something more interesting, maybe. A face tattoo or beaded hair or earrings, like the exotic woodblock prints he’d seen before of the Southern Water Tribe, but there was nothing. Sokka’s face was very handsome; the quality of his clothes was very fine, but on the whole he looked disappointingly normal. The style of his blue tunic was different and he wasn’t carrying a water skin, but otherwise he could pass as the ordinary son of any ordinary Northern Water Tribe overseer, on his way to the marketplace, or to extort more taxes from the farmers. Zuko had observed more interesting people just trying to order a drink at any seaport tavern. 

“I’m not going to bite,” Sokka said, misreading the expression on Zuko's face. “Sit down.”

Zuko took a few steps deeper into the room. “Is your father really Hakoda?” he asked.

“Yes, of course he is. Why would I lie about that?”

“I didn’t know he had a son. Just a daughter.”

“My beautiful and infamous sister is much more notorious than me,” Sokka said lightly, though his mouth had pinched in a moue of displeasure. “She tends to get most of the attention.”

Zuko didn’t answer, he was distracted by the wide windows on the far side of the room. He had thought they were left open, but on a closer look he now saw the smooth sheets of glass fitted into the panes. Real glass like this was almost unimaginable, even the richest house in their village back home only had oiled paper. Moving without realising it, Zuko went closer and stared at the sweeping cityscape below. He and Azula had been captured miles outside the capital, and to see the city now, spread out below him like this from a high vantage point – Zuko felt dizzy. There were tall buildings blown white with snow, wide boulevards carved out of ice, lights sparkling everywhere, all of it so bright it drowned out the distant stars. The sheer size and scale astounded him.

“It’s a nice view out there, isn’t it?” Sokka said. He came to the window as well.

The city bustled with strange animals too: dog-like beasts pulling carts and sleds; enormous arctic terns flying overhead, their beaks bulging with letters and parcels. Directly below them, Zuko could make out an arctic hippo pushing away a pile of built up snow beside a canalway. Zuko had seen the odd, enormous animals that the Northern Water Tribe used in combat, but he had never seen one of a Water Tribe city before. He had never imagined what one could look like. He thought of the village back home: its little houses with its little people inside them, scratching out their little, meagre livings planting tea, raising ducks, making lumps of charcoal. And all the while, people in frozen wastelands were building entire cities out of nothing.

A fresh wave of despair washed over Zuko. Had he really thought, once upon a time, that an ordinary revolt could succeed? 

“Are you done appreciating the scenery?” Sokka asked.

Zuko looked over wildly. “Where are the Southern Lights?” he blurted out.

“The weather isn’t right tonight,” Sokka said, like it was an obvious fact. “But even if the weather was right – you won’t see them from my window. We’re in the middle of the city; the aurora can’t compete with the street-lamps and the household lights.” 

Zuko wanted to ask him how was the city so bright – the lamps in his room gave off a clear, steady glow that was unlike any candle or lantern that Zuko had seen before. But then there came a knock on the door, and Sokka went to answer it. He came back with a covered tray in his hands and set it down on a round table close by the fireplace.

“Eat something,” he said.

A refusal was ready on Zuko's lips, but the words died when Sokka lifted the metal lid on the tray. There was a bowl of rice, still steaming, and a tureen of soup. Sokka ladled out a bowl, and the smell of fermented soy and sweet green onions unfolded in the air like a daydream. With a ceremonial flourish, Sokka uncovered another dish and set it out too: an omelette speckled with sesame seeds and fire flakes.

The animal laid a paw on the table and gave a hopeful bark, but Sokka pushed him down, and the hopeful bark turned into a whine. “It’s not for you, Foo Foo,” Sokka said. He produced a key from his pocket and showed it to Zuko. ”Look, I’m going to give you a break from being shackled. Don’t tell anyone though. The warden doesn’t know I copied his key. And again, don’t even think about attacking. Foo Foo here is engineered to attack at the sight of firebending.”

“You mean he’s trained,” Zuko said faintly. On the table, there was even a small plate of pickled carrots and cabbage, and the smell of garlic and sour brine brought him straight back to home. Azula kept a pickling jar under the kitchen floorboards; these could have came straight from there. 

Sokka gave him a look. “No,” he said. “I mean he’s engineered. His full name is Foo Foo Cuddlypoops, mark seventeen. The, uh, the first sixteen Foo Foo’s all went nuts at the sight of real fire.”

“What _is_ he?” 

“To be honest,” Sokka said, "when the prototypes are as unstable at this, we don’t give the breed an official name. He’s just Foo Foo to me. Isn’t that right, Foo Foo? That’s a good boy.” He tried to nuzzle his pet on its ferocious scaled head, and the animal snapped at his fingers. 

Zuko was dead. Or maybe he was still alive, but just passed out in his cell from hypothermia, and he was having a very vivid dream as his organs shut down. He rubbed his chafed wrists, then crossed them in front of himself. “I’m not eating anything from you.”

“I don’t see the difference between eating this and eating the prison gruel,” Sokka said. “Ethically speaking, I mean. Both are complimentary of the Southern Water Tribe, and by extension, me.”

He was smiling again, but then stopped at the force of Zuko's glare.

“How about we make a deal? If you eat now, I’ll send down the same tray to your friend in the cells. She almost came up here instead of you, I don’t want to be unfair. Plus, if you’re not eating, then I might assume our prison foods are too filling. I can give orders to stop both your rations for the next two days.”

“I hate you,” Zuko spat out.

Foo Foo, sensing something from where he was lying down by the fireplace, raised his head and snarled. Multiple rows of sharp teeth gleamed.

“Just eat it. Or else good food is going to waste.”

“Feeding your prisoner before you fuck him isn’t going to make what you’re doing right.”

Sokka winced. He got up from the table and leaned against it, tapping his chin with a finger.

“I know what this all looks like just now," he said, "but I’m not interested in that. I just want to talk, I swear. I’ll even swear it on my honour, how about that?”

There was a small teapot and two cups next to the food; Sokka poured out a small measure of green liquid and pushed the cup towards Zuko.

“Why don’t you have some calming jasmine tea?”

“I don’t want any calming tea,” Zuko snapped. He was about to knock the whole teaset to the floor, but then Foo Foo sat up on its hind legs with its unnatural red eyes fixed on Zuko. It seemed to have grown an extra row of teeth.

Zuko decided not to knock the whole teaset to the floor.

“Calm down, boy,” Sokka said in an easy tone. Once again, it was unclear if he was talking to Zuko or to the animal. “But just remember, what you eat is what your girlfriend eats. If you’ve made your decision, then just let me just go and tell the guards to stop the rations. The second tray is ready already, but I’ll tell the kitchens to dump it out.” 

He made a movement like he was about to leave, but before he even took a step, Zuko sighed and picked up the chopsticks.

Foo Foo laid back down on the rug.

It was strange to eat while someone else was staring at him, but at the first mouthful Zuko forgot himself and focused only on slowing down enough to not choke. The rice was hot and sweet and filling, the broth salty and redolent of the sea. The first sip of tea was ecstatic: after weeks of scavenging and camping on foreign terrain, followed by a week of prison food, the tender green fragrance of jasmine tea nearly broke Zuko.

He must have made some sort of noise, because Sokka looked amused. 

“You know, every Fire Nation meal I’ve seen is just rice and soybeans in a different combination. It’s not enough nutrition. After a week in the cells, you’ll upset your stomach if you have anything richer than what’s here. But in general, you people should eat more proper food.”

Zuko stopped his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “Like what?"

“Meat,” Sokka said. “Manatee milk. Healthy stuff with more iron and protein in it, not just rice all the time. How could a nation get strong on that kind of diet?”

“I don’t think it’s our low number of steaks that got us invaded, if that’s what you’re trying to say. I think it was the people invading us that got us invaded.”

Sokka didn’t respond. He poured himself a splash of tea, tried it, and then pulled a face. “This just tastes like grass to me. I don’t know what you all like so much about it.”

“Because it’s nice,” Zuko said. He had drained his own cup too fast, and a trickle of tea was running down the corner of his mouth. He wiped his chin on his hand, and then, to not waste anything, licked it up with a quick swipe of his tongue. He raised his head in time to see Sokka staring at him, his elegant fingers still wrapped around his own cup.

Zuko flushed, embarrassed and angry. He was aware how filthy and haggard he was, sitting at a table next to someone who was so well-groomed and broad-shouldered and clean by contrast. And Zuko wasn’t normally so sloppy; he wasn’t raised to have such crude manners, but the sudden intake of food made him lightheaded. Azula had always insisted that just because they lived among farmers didn’t mean that they were the same as them, but Zuko never felt like he had been born any more or less special than the next person – until now. It was the massive room that did it. How could one person live somewhere that could house a whole family? The inequality of the world was staggering.

Sokka let go of his cup and drummed his fingers on the table. “Let’s talk,” he said suddenly. “Why are you here?” 

Zuko looked away. 

“Answer me. Why would two firebenders risk their lives to come to the South Pole?

“To appreciate the scenery,” Zuko said, deadpan. “We love snow.”

Sokka didn’t miss a beat. “I like snow too,” he said. “But how did you get here? The scouts didn’t see any foreign ships in our waters. Did you two stow away on a cargo boat? Paid an Air Nomad to fly you in? How?”

“We followed the turtle-seals and swam our way over here."

“Oh, shut up,” Sokka said half-heartedly. He poured some more tea. Despite his disavowal for the taste, he did it as gracefully as a professional tea hostess. Zuko watched him set the pot down and had to stop himself from reflexively tapping the table in thanks. A part of him couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all a surreal dream. 

And then Sokka opened his mouth and asked, casually, “Are you here to kill the Avatar?” and the cup of calming jasmine tea flew out of Zuko's hands and landed near a fur rug, inches away from Foo Foo was lying.

Without thinking, Zuko dove after it with a napkin, picking up the cup and mopping up the damage. When he sat down again Sokka was smirking, and Zuko scowled. He doubted someone like Sokka had ever scrubbed a floor in his life, but Zuko was raised to take care of what he had. 

“You’re showing a lot more concern for the floor than you did for the waterbenders you took down,” Sokka said. “Or their polar bear-dogs. No lasting damage, however – our healers are very good. But I can’t say the same for the ones who faced the girl. So you understand why I'm asking what I'm asking. When such a powerful firebender shows up suddenly at our doorstep, I assume she’s here to kill someone. ” 

Zuko placed the cup back on the table. “We don’t want to kill the Avatar,” he said carefully.

“No? Then why are you here? To regain the honour that you lost?”

There was a faint crack running down the inside of the cup, from where it hit the floor. Zuko hoped he wouldn’t be punished for damaging property. “We’re here to find some answers,” he said, still very carefully.

“Does that involve the Avatar in any way?”

Zuko fell back into silence. He was already regretting opening his mouth in the first place.

“You not answering my question just answered my question,” Sokka said, and Zuko shrugged helplessly. Azula once told him to never even bother with lying, because Zuko always gave himself away. He wished she was here now with him; Zuko really wasn’t built for these kind of mind games.

“Listen, I’m going to tell you now, in case you get a crazy idea about escaping in order to find him: the Avatar is not here. He’s at the Southern Air Hub right now with my sister.”

Zuko swallowed dryly. “I don’t want to kill the Avatar. And I swore I wouldn’t try to escape.”

“Well, believe me," Sokka said, "I almost wish you would. You have no chance of succeeding, but it would have been fun to watch someone take him down a peg or two.”

“You don’t sound like you like him very much,” Zuko ventured. As long as Sokka was talking about himself, he wasn’t asking Zuko any more questions.

Sokka laughed. “Of course I don’t like him. I don’t like him as a person and I don’t like the attention he’s paying to my sister. She’s only sixteen. That’s too young to be traveling around the world with him, and to be honest, I don’t like what he’s putting her up to. I don’t like anyone who flies so high above the rest of us that we all look morally inferior to him. I don’t like him, I don't like what he does, and I don’t like his mystical nonsense about the spirits. I prefer things that exist in the real world.”

Zuko nodded – the key was for him to look interested enough to keep him talking, but not so interested as to make him suspicious. He couldn’t believe that Sokka was handing out such a wealth of information in such a casual way, but Sokka seemed like a boy in love with the sound of his own voice. 

He was still talking: “Did you know that the Southern Air Hub used to be called the Southern Air Temple?”

“Yes,” Zuko said, bewildered. “In old scrolls and stories, it’s what the Nomads used them for, once upon a time.”

“Right – once upon a time.” Sokka looked out the window for a long moment, then got up from the table and went to the desk in the corner. He took out something from a drawer and placed it on the table next to the teapot. “Does this look familiar?”

It was a small, wax-sealed cylinder, a bit scuffed. One end of the tube was trampled, as if its owner had dropped it from his pocket during an altercation with a team of patrolling waterbenders and their polar bear-dogs. There was no way Zuko could disguise the shock from his face, and no way that Sokka, looking at him so closely, could have missed it.

“So it does belong to you then,” he said with satisfaction “It’s very clever. A cardboard tube sealed with wax, and a chemical booby trap inside that would destroy the contents if anyone opened the lid and exposed it to air. I’m sure that a firebender could contain the combustion with his bending, but it would be a nasty surprise for anyone else.”

A swell of feeling rose up through Zuko’s chest. He looked down at his hands, trying to keep his breathing steady. 

Sokka went on. “Of course, someone who wasn’t a firebender, but who _was,_ I don’t know – a curious and somewhat accomplished chemist – that person could have studied the mechanism, melted the wax, and then opened it in a tank filled with an asphyxiant gas – nitrogen, let’s say. And then that person, curious about what’s inside something so carefully booby trapped, might find a piece of paper. He reads it; he finds out it’s a letter. And now he’s very, very curious about where that letter came from, and why it was being carried around Southern Water Tribe territory with no explanation, by two mysterious strangers trying very hard to disguise the fact that they're firebenders.” 

The cylinder laid on the table, accusative and silent like the body of some dead animal. Sokka called its contents a letter, but it was more than a letter to Zuko. For weeks he had treated that piece of paper like both a talisman and a compass, giving him hope and guiding him south. To have someone open it was the same as ripping Zuko’s heart open, exposing the raw and bloody chambers inside to the open air. So this was what Sokka wanted to talk about; Zuko wished it wasn't. Getting fucked would have been less painful. “I’ve never seen this before,” he said weakly.

He really was bad at lying: Sokka didn’t even bother gracing that with a response. 

“Whatever it is you’re thinking,” Sokka said instead, “whatever you think it proves, whatever it is you’re looking for – give it up. It’s been more than a century by now. You’re not going to find your answers here.” 

“You don’t know anything about me."

“I know you’re crazy to come here.”

“My whole family is crazy. I’m actually the sanest one out of all of us.” 

When it became clear Zuko had nothing else to add, Sokka pushed his chair away from the table, got up, and started pacing back and forth in front of the hearth. “You know what I think?” he said after a few minutes of walking up and down the room. “I think we both hold different pieces of the same puzzle, and we can only solve it if we work together. You and I – we’re on the opposite sides of a century-long mystery.”

“We’re also on opposite sides of a war,” Zuko said drily.

Sokka flapped his hand at him. “Small details.”

“Not to the people you invaded.”

“ _We_ never invaded anyone. The Northern Water Tribe acted unilaterally. The South has always been neutral.”

“Have you told that to your sister?”

“Katara is the most powerful waterbender of our generation. You think she cares about the opinions of someone like me? A non-bender? And besides–” Sokka's face darkened. "It's complicated. You may have heard about her, but you don't know anything about her. Or my people. We all have reasons for what we do."

安

A knock came from the door. Someone behind it called out:

“Prince Sokka? There’s a message for you.” 

“I’m busy,” Sokka called back. “Give me a minute.” He leaped towards Zuko and dragged him out of the chair, pulling him towards the bed.

“What are you doing?” Zuko hissed. 

“Shut up,” Sokka said. He dove on top of the smooth sheets and rolled back and forth a few times, elbows tucked in. He grabbed the pillows and threw them on the floor, and then shoved Zuko on top of the rumpled covers. “Lie down.”

“Why?” Zuko demanded. 

“Just shut up and lie down,” Sokka said. He shook out one of the blankets with a snap. “And try to look more...more – actually, just lie down. And don’t move!”

Zuko glowered, but he tucked himself under the blanket anyways. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sokka pulling off his tunic and throwing it across the room to land on a chair. Sokka also ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it out of its neat tie, and then sprinted to the door and opened it, sticking his head out.

“What do you want?” he said, sounding much more out of breath than the burst of activity should have left him. “I thought I made it clear I was busy for the evening.”

The messenger shuffled and said something in a low voice; Zuko, not daring to firebend with Foo Foo in the room, strained his ears to listen.

“...came by messenger tern. There’s a change of plans, they’re hurrying back now. The bird was delayed by the weather, but they should be here in two days.” 

A pause.

“I’ll start getting ready now, and everyone else can start tomorrow at dawn,” Sokka replied. His voice was much easier to pick up. “Two days is still plenty of time, no need to disturb the rest of the lab from their sleep.” The messenger murmured something else, and Sokka laughed humourlessly. “If Katara gets annoyed, tell her it’s her brother’s decision and nothing to do with you. And while you’re at it, if you see them before I do, you can tell her and –” He stepped the rest of the way out into the hall, and the closing door cut off the rest of their conversation. But not before Zuko caught one last piece of information. A name.

He was still mulling it over when the door opened again and Sokka stepped back inside. “You can get up now,” he told Zuko. “The guards will be here soon to take you back to your cell.”

Zuko sat up. Sokka gave him a critical look, and then, moving quickly, reached over and untied Zuko's belt, and then pulled open the braided closures on his shirt as well. The filthy and tattered material fell open easily. 

“Stop that!” Zuko hissed.

Foo Foo got up with a noise and trotted over, but Sokka ignored them both. He reached up and scrubbed a knuckle over Zuko’s mouth, holding Zuko’s head still with his other hand. Zuko struggled, but Sokka’s grip was strong. “Do you think I should leave a bite on you? Is that what people do?”

“ _What the fuck_."

“Look, what I’ve told you tonight, about the Avatar, and the letter – I haven’t talked about this with anyone else. I’m putting myself at risk as much as you are, alright? I needed to speak with one of you twoalone without arousing suspicions, and there’s only one good cover story for why anyone would need this much private time with a prisoner. And hey, bonus, it makes everyone uncomfortable, so I guarantee no one would ask too many questions. Now shut up and try to look like you’re...like you’re a bit more–”

“A bit more assaulted?” Zuko asked. “Coerced? Brutalised? I’ll pass on the bite, if you’ll allow it. This is the worst offer I’ve ever received.” 

“Well you smell terrible anyways,” Sokka said, looking wounded. “Get off my bed before you contaminate my sheets any further.” 

Zuko felt another hot flush of embarrassment rising up. It was true; he hadn’t bathed in weeks. The stink of sweat and blood on him wasn’t so obvious in the cold cell, but in a warm and clean room the ripe odour came off of him in waves. He didn’t want to help Sokka, but it also wasn’t worth antagonising the chieftain’s son. At the end of the day, Zuko and his sister were prisoners, and if Sokka thought he was at risk, Zuko and Azula could only be in even more danger. So Zuko stood up and ran his tongue over his lower lip, trying to moisten it enough to look debauched. He fastened his shirt again, deliberately missing a few buttons, and then raked his fingers through his matted hair – he still wasn’t used to how short it was – and fluffed it up. He’d only ever had a few rough encounters with other men: once or twice with one of the tea pickers back in Hira’a, a more extended arrangement with a young earthbender whose tent was next to his at Ba Sing Se. Zuko had never slept with anyone in a real bed before, and he had never paid much attention to what he or the other man looked like after the sex part was over. He can only hope it passed inspection.

“Is this believable?” 

Sokka gave him another long look. “I think you’re unbelievable in every way."

“Cuff me,” Zuko said.

“Excuse me?”

“The cuffs.” Zuko pointed at the table. He hated the idea of having them back on, but there was also the chance he would be punished for Sokka’s transgression with the keys. “You’re not supposed to have the key, right? You’ll need to put them back on me.”

“Oh,” Sokka said. “Right.”

He was still bare-chested, and he radiated heat as he fastened the iron shackles around Zuko’s wrists. When he was done he didn’t let go straight away, but looked down at Zuko’s hands for a long while, examining them.

“You have the hands of a soldier or a labourer,” he said quietly. “But you don’t talk like one. Who are you? What’s your name?”

Zuko said nothing. Sokka's hands were broad and warm, and when he let go, Zuko let his hands fall with a jingle of the chains. He waited for Sokka to summon the guards again, but Sokka remained where he was, sitting on the chair, staring down at the floor. 

“I feel the same way as you do sometimes,” he said abruptly. “Like my whole family is crazy, and I'm the sanest one around.” 

Zuko could have told him that there was no difference between being a crazy man amongst sane people, and being a sane man amongst crazy people. But he doubted Sokka would understand. The world didn’t make sense to Zuko most of the time, but neither did he to the rest of the world. The two of them sat for a long while in their respective silences, with nothing but the crackle of the fire and the snores from Foo Foo filling the empty space between them. Fine with Zuko – his mind was still spinning with what he'd seen and learned: the unnaturally clear lamps, the sight of the city, the abnormal animal, the news of the Avatar, the reveal that the letter had been discovered and opened. He still could not understand what, exactly, Sokka wanted with him. Maybe they were both crazy, and this was evidence.

Next to him, Sokka sat, fidgeting, tapping his fingers, every now and then heaving a sigh like he was working out a puzzle in his head. He gave nothing more away. Finally he got up, opened the door again, and beckoned to the guards outside. “I’m done now. Take him back.”

安

They blindfolded Zuko again on the way back to the prison, only untying it once Zuko was placed back inside the cell. The cold was both better and worse than before: better now that his belly was full, worse now that he’d had a taste of being warm again. 

The second that the guards retreated back to their stations, an insistent banging came from the wall between their two cells.

“I’m okay, Azula,” Zuko whispered. “I’m alright. Did they bring you something to eat?”

A single thump. _Yes_. 

Judging by the things that Sokka had asked, the one thing Zuko did know was that no one was eavesdropping on their cells. Speaking as quietly as he could, he recounted the evening to Azula as best as he could. The only thing he left out was the letter in Sokka’s possession. Azula would reach through the stone wall to kill him if she discovered how foolish her brother had been to carry it with him.

He sensed Azula’s frustration even through the wall. She would have already thought of a million things that Zuko should have asked or said differently; she would already have a million insights and conclusions drawn from even his poor summary of events. But there was no way to share them.

He checked outside their window: a waning arc. The moon was in its third quarter, and the new moon, the time when waterbenders were at their weakest, was only a week away.

“Just hang tight,” Zuko said, “I have a feeling things are going to change very soon.”

安

_A bright light; the dark woods; his footsteps crunching through the frozen layer of snow. The lemur chirruped, and once again, they’re in front of the glowing pool._

Zuko blinked his eyes open. His dreams are growing more and more vivid the longer they stay in the South Pole.

安

The next night:

“How is this table possible?” Zuko asked.

“This table?”

Zuko ran a hand over the table top in Sokka's room, examining the smooth red lustre of the cherry wood. He had no great skill at carpentry, but the basic chores and repairs of the Hira’a house had given him a basic eye for woodwork. “It looks like a normal table, but it’s seamless – there’s no edges or joints on it. It looks like the legs and the top are made from one piece of wood. How’s that possible?”

“Of course it’s one piece of wood,” Sokka said, spinning an empty teacup around like it’s a top. “It’s grown that way.”

Zuko’s mouth fell open.

“Water is the basis of all life,” Sokka added. He did not elaborate.

Zuko suspected it was because he couldn’t. Maybe Sokka considered it beneath him to learn something as tradesmen-like as carpentry. “I’ll tell you where that letter comes from,” he said, changing the topic, “if you give me a favour in return.”

He got another scornful raise of the eyebrow in response. “You’re really not in the position to barter,” Sokka said. 

Sokka hadn’t come to the prison himself this time, but when the two new guards blindfolded Zuko and took him out of his cell, Zuko was not shocked. The force of Sokka’s curiosity had been as palpable as the stench of ozone before rain: the boy crackled with it, and he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d squeezed every last secret out of Zuko. Zuko had no great skill at reading people either, but he could tell when another man wanted something from him. He knew when he was in a position to barter.

He crossed his arms and waited. He didn’t wait long.

“Fine,” Sokka said loudly. “But tell me what favour first.”

“I want to be put in the cell opposite from my current one.”

“They’re all the same. One isn’t easier to escape from than the other.”

“I want to see my friend,” Zuko said. “I need to know that she’s doing okay. I want to see her face again.” 

They were both sitting at the table, the remains of another dinner beside them. This time, Sokka had ate alongside Zuko, some sort of greasy stew with a stack of flatbreads on the side. Zuko wouldn’t have minded trying some, but Sokka didn’t offer and Zuko would never ask. Foo Foo stared at them the whole time from his spot by the fire, a hopeful look on his scaly face as he gnawed a pair of boots to shreds. 

Sokka bounced a leg up and down. “You and the mute girl communicate by hand gestures, don’t you? You want to be put somewhere so that you can talk.” His leg jiggled faster.

Sokka, Zuko had noticed by now, never stopped moving around. He had no shortage of grace, but he was forever moving his teacup or scratching his hair or trying to stop Foo Foo from destroying something, frowning or fidgeting or moving his hands around in search of something, anything, to divert his manic energy. He was like a newborn koala-lamb: there was simply too much life to be contained by a physical body at rest. It took its toll: there were dark circles under Sokka's eyes the colour of tea stains, ones that weren't there the night before. Zuko felt exhausted just looking at him. 

“We talk through signing, yes,” he said. He didn't bother with lying. “I just want to know if she’s alright.”

“What happened to her? Was she born mute?” 

There was no point in lying about this either. “A waterbender cut her throat. She nearly bled out. Her life was saved, but the damage to the vocal cords was permanent.”

“Oh. I’m sorry."

Zuko shrugged. There were lots of people back home with frostbitten hands or missing limbs – official punishments for transgressions against the occupying government. And there were always the random bands of waterbenders wandering around the bigger cities, spoiled youths itching for a fight against people too poor and frightened to retaliate. Between the two of them, it was Zuko who got the most outright attention for his left eye. Azula, with her delicate good looks and her femaleness, got a lot of quiet pity. But only from the strangers who didn’t know her, of course.

In the awkward silence that followed, Sokka stopped fidgeting in favour of staring out the far windows. The silence stretched on; he resumed bouncing up and down with his other leg.

Zuko wondered if it was some sort of psychological tactic designed to drive Zuko to distraction. _Stop that,_ he wanted to say, but what came out was: “You should be sorry.”

“Why?”

“The best thing about Azula was her voice. And then you people took it away from her.” 

Sokka’s head tilted. “So her name’s Azula,” he said with interest. “Good to know. Is she a singer or something?”

That was such a stupid giveaway that Zuko had to resist the urge to throw himself out the window. Foo Foo must have some ability that allowed him to sense imminent firebending, because he bounded over and bared his teeth. 

“Relax,” Sokka said. He was smirking. “Half the girls in the Fire Nation are named after the dead aristocracy. All of them have names like Azula or Soza or Roki or something like that; the only thing you’ve given away is that your parents were incredibly pedestrian in their tastes.”

“Don’t insult them,” Zuko said irritably. Foo Foo’s hackles went up.

"A-ha. So you two _do_ have the same parents; I thought your features were similar. You’re brother and sister, aren’t you? No, don’t scowl at me–” Zuko scowled harder “– I already guessed as much. Tell me more about Azula. Was your sister a good singer?”

“She’s a good talker.”

“You’re not a bad talker yourself,” Sokka said, and he had the audacity to wink.

Zuko kept his mouth shut. Azula should be the one sitting here, not him. With nothing but her words, Azula could convince fish to walk and birds to swim. Sokka might think he was smart, but Azula was ten times smarter, more vicious too. That was what Zuko had meant: Azula being robbed of her voice had been devastating.

But that was what war did: it finds the best and brightest thing about a person, and then takes it away.

Foo Foo’s teeth were still bared. Looking for a distraction,Zuko took a scrap of fish from the leftovers of the table and held it out: Foo Foo came closer, sniffing at his fingers suspiciously. Those rows of teeth looked even sharper up close, but Zuko held still and made himself relax – animals could sense when someone was afraid of them, and the key was to never be afraid of them. He kept his hand extended, his posture friendly. It paid off. After another suspicious sniff, Foo Foo swiped up the morsel of fish with its rough tongue. His long tail wagged.

Sokka made a noise of disbelief, but Zuko smiled. He was pretty good with the goats and pig-hens back home; animals had always liked him. Not sure where to put his hands for something like Foo Foo, he settled for patting the thing on its head, avoiding the scaled ridges. He fed him another scrap of fish, and the animal gave a bark of pleasure. He flopped over, exposing its iridescent tummy, and Zuko rubbed that too. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” he murmured. “You don’t want to attack anyone.”

Foo Foo barked adoringly.

“He’s supposed to hate firebenders,” Sokka protested.

“I’m not firebending right now,” Zuko said. “Now what about my offer? Can you let me switch cells?”

Sokka started, like he’d forgotten about the whole point of their conversation. “Yes, fine. I guess Ican empathize with your brotherly concerns, even if I don’t sympathize with them.”

“Deal.”

“Deal,” Sokka echoed. He half-rose out of his chair to grab Zuko’s hand on the table. He pulled Zuko in and pressed their cheeks together. 

Zuko tensed up, but Sokka only took a quick breath and let him go. “Phew,” he said. “I should have remembered to order you both a wash. But now the deal’s done. Start talking.”

安

Where to even begin?

“The letter...an old master of mine gave the letter to me,” Zuko said. He didn’t want to explain the White Lotus, and he chose his next words with as much care as he could. “The letter was given to him by his own teacher before that, Supposedly it goes all the way back to the original recipient, passing from person to person for a century. It’s considered a sort of – quest. My master made the journey before me, so now here I am doing the same.”

“What did he find?” Sokka asked.

“Enlightenment or something, I don’t know. Most people see it as a symbolic thing. They don’t take it on a literal level.” 

Zuko trailed off. Sokka’s dark eyebrows were furrowed tightly together. In a brisk motion, he leaped out of his chair and began pacing in front of the fireplace. He was as well-dressed as he was yesterday, this time in a dove-grey tunic with tiny stitching in white, but something about him radiated dishevelment anyways, so that even his clothes looked like they were wrinkling themselves. The dark circles under his eyes were even worse by the bright light of the fire.

“They’re getting desperate,” he said. 

Zuko blinked and set the teapot down, trying to keep up. “Who?”

“The Air Nomads.” Sokka strode back, pulled out his chair from the table, and spun it around before sitting down, so his chin rested on the chair's back and his legs straddled the sides. “Let me tell you something about my side of our shared puzzle.”

“We don’t share anything,” Zuko said automatically.

Sokka went on like he hadn't heard. “So here’s what I see from my side. You know what’s special about this year?”

“Could it be the year when you set two Fire Nation prisoners free with no hard feelings?”

“This year is the tipping point,” Sokka said, ignoring Zuko again. “This year, more Air Nomad babies were born non-benders than benders. I mean, I could be wrong – it’s possible the children are just manifesting later, more in line with the rest of the world – but there was a time in living memory when every Air Nomad baby summoned a breeze on their first breath outside the womb. They used to call it the breath of life. It used to be the default. It was expected. Their mothers looked for it. But this year, fewer than half of the babies had it. And the ones that did are getting weaker and weaker. The average infant used to make a strong gust. Now, they make what I’d charitably call a light breeze. I can give you my monograph on Air Nomad demographic statistics, but I’ll just summarise it now: we're seeing a century-long trend that’s only accelerated over the last few years.”

“So children take longer to grow into their bending,” Zuko said. “So what?”

“So,” Sokka said, parroting Zuko’s tone. “Airbending in general is getting weaker and weaker every generation. Did you know that a hundred years ago, _every single airbender_ could fly using a glider? No one wants to talk about it, but it’s true. The Nomads themselves know it’s true. They’re dying out. ”

“How haven't I heard about it? I didn’t know it was getting so bad."

But Zuko already knew the answer. News of the wider world was hard to come by in the remote mountains of Hira’a. There was a time when things like this would have passed through the White Lotus to Iroh, and then from Iroh to his niece and nephews, but that was years ago – before Zuko’s failure at Ba Sing Se, before Azula lost her voice, before Iroh renounced the Order and decided that nothing in the world interested him beside the weather and the tea crops.

“I’ve collected every report and checked all the figures,” Sokka said. “I’ve tracked down some of the last remaining monks and nuns and interviewed them about what they remember. I’ve been corresponding with midwives and healers and new mothers. I know what I’m seeing.”

Despite himself, Zuko was fascinated. “Why is this happening?” 

“I don’t know,” Sokka said. “Hence – mystery. That’s where you come in.”

He shook the teapot, then spun the lid around and around to make a rattling noise. “It’s not a coincidence that the universe delivered you and that letter to me right at this moment in my life. I have so many pieces of the puzzle, but I can’t make it all _fit_.” He pushed the teapot away. “I have no idea what it all means when I look at it all together.”

“Sure,” Zuko said. “But have you considered that the airbenders are better off without both of the Water Tribes meddling with them?”

“I’m trying to help them!” Sokka snapped.

Foo Foo made a noise at the sudden outburst, and Zuko scritch-scratched him again on the belly. The animal flopped back over the floor by his feet. “Why are you so obsessed about this?” he asked.

Sokka sighed. “I want answers,” he said moodily. “Everything’s connected. Everything is a clue that leads to a question that leads to another clue, and then another question. Why are some people born benders and others aren’t? Why are some people powerful and other people helpless? More importantly: _what is spirituality?_ or spirits? The world works in such mysterious ways. The Air Nomads used to have true equality, because every child was born the same. Now that’s not the case. I thought, maybe if I could understand _this,_ then maybe I’ll understand why the world works the way it does. I can understand how my own family –” Sokka stopped suddenly, shook his head. “Anyways. It’s an interesting area of research, that’s all. It’s a fun hobby.”

“This is just a hobby to you?”

“My main work,” Sokka said, “is something far more depressing.”

Zuko studied Sokka’s face. His eyes were the same rich blue as a cobalt vase, very striking, but there was a look in them with so much vulnerability and misery that Zuko actually reached out, forgetting himself. He meant to pat Sokka on the shoulder, but then, those blue eyes widened in alarm at Zuko’s upraised hand, and Zuko paused midway, reconsidering.

He dropped his hand and went back to stroking Foo Foo on his ridged back. “True equality isn’t about being born the same,” he said. “It’s about being treated the same, no matter how you’re born.”

“Don’t be condescending,” Sokka said, familiar petulance colouring his voice. 

“Then don’t whine."

They said nothing else for the rest of the night. Zuko expected Sokka to prod him for more details about his master, draw out the secret of the White Lotus somehow, but Sokka was more interested in pacing up and down, muttering to himself about something. He ignored Zuko until it was time for Zuko to go, and then they went through the same bizarre play-acting they did the previous night. Sokka rumpled the bed and loosened his hair; Zuko unbuttoned and re-buttoned his clothes, scrubbed at his cheeks to simulate a flush. He gave one last pat to Foo Foo, who whimpered when he realised his new favourite human was about to leave.

“You better not have forgotten our deal,” he said, as Sokka snapped his shackles back on.

Sokka's expression was unreadable. “Word of advice: don’t trust anyone or anything around here.” 

The door swung open and the guards came in, and Zuko was marched out before he could demand to know what that meant.

安

Sokka didn’t keep his word.

Zuko knew it the minute that the cold and the echoing stone made it clear that he was back in deep freeze. He was beginning to get a sense of where his cell was in relation to the doorway, and when the guards un-tied Zuko’s blindfold, he was surprised but not shocked to find himself back in his old cell, out of sight of Azula.

The wall between them thumped. 

“I’m alright,” Zuko told his sister. “I learned a lot today. Although I think I gave away a lot too. If he hasn’t already, he’s going to figure out who we are soon. We can’t afford to wait until the new moon anymore.”

A single tap. _Yes._

安

_He smashed the surface with the rock, again and again, trying to bat away the vicious creature attacking him. His fingers cramped with the effort; there was warm blood trickling down his face. What was inside the ice?_

_Or – who?_ _He peered over and saw...he thought he saw —_

_The thing skimmed low over his head, coming from the blind spot on Zuko’s left side to snap at his face again. Zuko tried to make a fire, tried to defend himself, but like always – nothing came. The ice cracked. He plunged down, down, down into the water, gasping, choking, trying to search for air..._

Zuko woke up and slammed a fist against the stone wall.

安

The third night: if it wasn’t for the cuffs, Zuko would have punched Sokka the second that the guards took off his blindfold and left the room.

“I thought we had a deal,” he snarled. 

Foo Foo gave a confused whine, trapped between his engineered instinct and his new, learned adoration. Zuko took a deep breath, and for the animal’s sake if nothing else, reined in his temper and shook out his hand. A faint curl of smoke went up as the tiny flame extinguished from his fist.

Sokka was sitting at his desk in the corner, his head in his hands. He didn’t even look up when Zuko was marched in, and now he held out his hands with the palms facing up in a placating gesture. “Calm down. We did have a deal.”

“I want to see my sister.”

“That makes precisely one of us in this room,” Sokka said, and laughed in that strange, humourless way again. He stood up from his chair. “Listen: our deal was that you’d tell me where the letter came from. You barely did that. All you told me was that you got it from someone who got it from someone else – that’s not very useful to me. And also – what did you do to your hand?”

Zuko couldn’t cross his arms with the cuffs still on, so he settled for glaring. His hand throbbed from when he had punched the wall, the tingle of phantom fire across it only made the pain worse.

“I didn’t let the guards move you,” Sokka said, “because I thought you two might try to escape. And believe me, that’s not a good idea right now. I’m actually trying to look out for your safety.”

“I swore on my father’s grave that I wouldn’t escape.”

Sokka scoffed. “Nice try if you thought I’d fall for the oldest trick in the scroll,” he said. “Let me guess: your father isn’t even dead.”

Zuko gritted his teeth. “It’s – complicated."

“There you go then. Now we've both admitted that our word means nothing. Sounds fair to me.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Zuko counted down slowly from ten, trying to keep a hold on his temper. Foo Foo whined again and shoved a cold nose into his hand; Zuko rubbed its head with his eyes still closed. It was surprisingly soothing.

“Hey,” Sokka said by the time Zuko counted down to four, “you have to understand something. My sister and the Avatar are arriving from the Southern Air Hub tomorrow. First thing he wants to do is see you and your sister.” 

“I told you: I’m not here to capture him or kill him. I don’t care about him.”

Sokka scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re still not understanding. _You’re not a threat to him_. He’s a threat to _you_.”

“I’m not afraid.”

A bang: Sokka had stood up with such force that his chair fell backwards and crashed to the floor. “You should be afraid!” he yelled. “You’re an idiot if you’re not afraid!”

Both of them glared at each other, breathing heavily, and Sokka looked away first. 

“Have you heard the rumours about the Avatar?” he asked in a quieter voice. “About what he’s capable of? About what happens in the Southern Air Hub?” 

“Some of it,” Zuko said. “That’s where they take the prisoners of war.”

“Yes. To a camp in one of the surrounding valleys.” Sokka said. He knelt down and righted the chair, his face turned away from Zuko. “The Avatar can do something extraordinary. I don’t know how it works, whether we should call it bloodbending or spiritbending or whatever, but he can do something no one has seen before. He can take away people’s bending.”

Zuko said nothing. Sokka wove his way out from behind his desk and resumed pacing in his usual spot before the fireplace.

“The problem,” he said, “and it’s a very big problem – is that the Avatar can’t do the opposite. He can’t give bending back and he can’t make people who are not benders into one. But he’s optimistic about it. He’s a cheerful guy, our Avatar. Very _spiritual_. He says it’s only a matter of time before he figures out how, and it’s why he needs the resources he does right now at the Southern Air Hub: the camps, the labs, the experiments. It's all for his grand purpose. But for now there's nothing to show for all of it. The Avatar can only take, not give.”

“That's impossible,” Zuko whispered, dizzy again.

“Oh yes.”

“Have you seen it? Are you sure it’s true?”

“Yes.”

“How does he do it? What’s it like?” 

Sokka stopped pacing. For the first time since Zuko had met him, he went completely still. “It was spectacular,” he said flatly. “Spectacular and awful. When I saw it, it made me glad to be a non-bender for the first time in my life. I’d rather have nothing at all than to have something, and then have it ripped away from me like that. Can you imagine what it's like to see a piece of someone's soul ripped out of them? And what's it like – you know, I always imagined the soul as a bubble. If I can hold it in my hands, that's what it'd look like. Something soft. Boneless. That's what the elders say in stories, but they're wrong. It's light, pure light. You can't no more hold it than you can hold the moon. And when the Avatar takes it..." Sokka snapped his fingers. "It goes, just like that."

“That’s just evil,” Zuko said, appalled. He had to lace his fingers together to stop his hands from shaking. “That’s not what an Avatar is supposed to do. Why do the Air Nomads put up with him?” 

“You seem to think that the Avatar is a force of good to fight against evil, but an Avatar is only supposed to bring balance. Ending the war would bring balance. Saving the airbenders would bring balance. Of course they put up with it – he’s their one great hope for saving their race. Hope is an addictive poison.” 

“No,” Zuko said.

Sokka gave him a sharp look; the pacing began again. “Maybe the Avatar isn’t meant to save the world, but reflect it,” he said.

“No,” Zuko said again.

“That’s an interesting question you just asked though. Not the first one I’d go for if our places were swapped, but you really believe in this stuff, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Good versus evil,” Sokka said, and stopped pacing. “Hope. But you need to forget about that, start thinking about the real world. If the Avatar reflects the world he’s in, maybe every era deserves the Avatar that they get. And now ask yourself this: what does someone who can take away people’s bending want with a pair of dangerous firebending prisoners? Not even you should find it too hard to answer this one.”

安

Zuko accepted the knotted handkerchief from Sokka and tucked it inside his shirt, in the same pocket where he’d once kept a sealed letter next to his heart.

“Why should I trust you?” he asked.

“You probably shouldn’t,” Sokka said. “But for what it’s worth, I’m taking a risk too. Suppose someone found out what I’ve done?”

“They wouldn’t.”

Sokka sighed. “We’ll both have to take a leap of faith. You know a lot of things about me by now, but I don’t even know your name. I don’t know anything about you.” 

Like the previous two nights, there was a full teapot on the table, brought in along with the rest of dinner. Neither of them had touched it, but Zuko poured out two cups now and beckoned for Sokka to come closer. He handed one of the cups to Sokka, who made a questioning noise.

“Maybe this would be a promise that we’ll both keep,” Zuko said. He pulled Sokka’s arm towards him, wrapping his own arm around Sokka’s, so that the cup that each of them was holding was positioned in front of the other’s mouth. “This is something we do back home. We drink a toast to our promises. Now drink up.”

Sokka’s eyes fluttered shut. He drank; so did Zuko. They untangled their intertwined arms. 

Zuko set his cup down gently. He wasn’t lying this time; a tea ceremony like that, however hastily performed, meant that he was truly giving his word, and he would not betray Sokka even if it meant his life was on the line. And if Sokka betrayed him now, then that would be a mark on his soul, not Zuko’s. Even in the worst case scenario, Zuko would die with whatever’s left of his honour intact. 

安

There was still time before Zuko was to be sent back to his cell.

“Tell me something about yourself,” Sokka said suddenly. “In case... in case something happens. Let me know something about you.”

Zuko studied his hands. There were lots of stories about himself that he could tell – the story about his scar, or the many stories about Ba Sing Se – but he didn’t want to say any of them. He didn’t know if he liked Sokka or not, but he didn’t want to leave Sokka with a sad image of him, poor little Zuko and his poor little country.

“When we were children,” he said slowly. “My sister and I were given a set of toys at New Year’s. One of them was a wooden puzzle the size of a fist. It was a series of interlocking wooden poles, almost like a bird’s nest, and once you assembled them they held a carved ball in the middle. We spent ages working on it – the two of us and our cousin – because it was so difficult to do. Every piece had to be assembled in the right order at the right angle, and we just couldn’t solve it. Until–”

“Until what?”

“Until I found the missing piece. One of the wooden poles had rolled out from our room and got lost under the foundations of the house. Once I found it, my sister and my cousin finished the whole thing within an afternoon.” 

It was a good story, even if the memory was still sad. Zuko still remembered the glow of satisfaction he felt that day. Zuko didn’t solve the actual thing, he had been the only one still determined enough to keep trying, even after Azula and Lu Ten had moved on to better diversions. He spent ages crawling on his knees around the whole house, on the bitterly cold and wintry ground. But it was all worth it for the finished puzzle, the memory of the three of them cooing over the sight of the little painted ball locked inside its intricate prison. The ball was painted in four sections: blue, green, red, orange, all the colours of the four elements. Zuko had loved it, for its bright colours as well as what it represented, a reminder that the three of them were better off working together than apart. 

“Where’s the cousin now?” Sokka asked.

“His ashes are under a chestnut tree back home,” Zuko said. Sokka’s eyes lowered in sympathy. Foo Foo got up from his spot by Zuko’s feet and laid his scaly head in his lap. A long silence passed; Zuko stared at the fireplace, seeing nothing. He was trying to remember what happened to that puzzle. Where did it go? Something stirred; a memory. That's right – he had burned the puzzle their first month back home from Ba Sing Se, along with Lu Ten's old clothes and his Pai Sho set and the rest of his belongings. Iroh could not bear the sight of them.

“My cousin is part of the reason I’m here,” Zuko said softly. “Here’s something else you can know about me. After he died, I wanted to die too – I almost did. But at the last minute, I saw something. A vision from the Spirit World.” 

This was the first time Zuko had said this to anyone other than his uncle and sister. Even saying it now brought back a torrent of memories: the smell of mud and blood, and screaming, the rustle of strange creatures swooping overhead, the weight of Lu Ten's body in Zuko's arms. The moment when, half-mad with fear and shock, Zuko's mind went to a strange and unfamiliar place.

“The spirits showed me a strange place," he murmured. "Somewhere cold and surrounded by dark trees, with a brilliant light that shone upwards like a column, and the aurora above my head. I saw a lemur, and I followed him to the edge of a frozen pond. There’s something inside it, and I realised the spirits want me to crack the ice open. I thought my destiny had ended with my cousin's death, but they showed me a different way. The lemur was letting me know my destiny is to free whatever’s on the other side.”

“You’re risking your life because a lemur said so?” Sokka asked in disbelief.

Zuko sighed and rubbed Foo Foo under his chin. “The lemur didn’t speak. And visions aren’t supposed to be literal.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Sokka said in a strange tone. Zuko whipped his head up, but Sokka only added, “Any spirit that wants to communicate with you would really have to spell things out, I’m just saying.” 

Zuko wondered if he should feel offended, but he let it go. It was the sort of comment Lu Ten might have teased him with, once upon a time. The family’s inside joke was that, while in the womb, Zuko had traded half his brain for twice the heart, and Azula, coming after Zuko and seeing where that got her brother, chose vice-versa. And, the joke went on, that was why Lu Ten never got a sibling, because he had enough brain and heart for two people. And that was how they all felt about his death too: such grief and sadness didn't seem possible for mourning just one person. But it was. Zuko suddenly thought about his uncle, alone back in Hira'a with only Lu Ten's grave for company, and his chest ached.

“Tell me a third thing,” Sokka said softly, breaking into Zuko’s thoughts. “What’s your name? I still don’t know.” 

Strange that someone could know so many of the most intimate details of Zuko’s heart and Zuko’s past, but not his name. He hesitated, but what was a name between them at this point?

“It’s Zuko."

“Zu-ko,” Sokka repeated, like he was savouring the sound of it in his mouth. “I see what you’re trying to say, Zuko.”

“You do?”

Sokka nodded. “The point is, you can’t solve a puzzle until you have all the pieces, but you also don’t know if you have all the pieces of a puzzle until you’ve solved it. That’s why the spirits showed you a vision. That’s why the two of us met. We’re going to solve this, you and I.”

“I thought you don’t believe in mystical nonsense,” Zuko said, surprised.

“I don’t believe in the Avatar,” Sokka said. “I believe in you.”

安

This time, when the guards marched Zuko back into the prison, they put him in a new cell. He scrambled to the bars in front, pressed himself as close as he could get. Directly across from him, over the gulf of the wide prison corridor, Azula was doing the same. 

The two of them never went for big emotional displays, but now both of them stretched out their arms at the same time through the bars, trying in vain to meet in the space between. Their fingers closed around nothing but cold air; only a few desperate, stupid inches apart; and then behind Azula's hand, her face, its desperate look a mirror image of his own. Zuko almost sobbed. Azula looked down. Then they both drew back, wiped their faces, and gave each other the space they needed to become themselves again.

_Tell me everything_ , Azula signed when she re-composed herself. 

Half-speaking and half-signing – it was safer that way, in case the guards could overhear – he told her everything.

Azula listened with fierce concentration, and when Zuko was done she leaned back and stroked her chin in thought, as if grooming an invisible beard. She looked so comically like their uncle that Zuko could have laughed, then cried. 

_It’s interesting that the airbenders are on the decline, but the most important thing is that the Avatar can really take away people’s bending. Even you have to agree that’s not something that could be faked. This confirms it, Zuko, he is the Avatar. He’s returned._

“No,” Zuko said out loud. _It doesn’t confirm anything,_ he added in sign language.

Azula rolled her eyes. _No one living under this much scrutiny can keep a hoax running for two years._

This was an old argument between two siblings, the same one that they’ve been having on and off for the past two years, ever since the Avatar came out of the ice and snow, ever since he chose the battle of Ba Sing Se to make his reappearance in the world. 

_Taking away people’s bending is not a characteristic of an Avatar,_ Zuko signed back, and despite the stiffness brought on by the cold, his hands moved so quickly Azula didn’t catch it the first time. _That’s not the sign of an Avatar_ , he signed again. _Sokka said nothing about the Avatar state, and nothing about talking with the spirits, and we still haven’t heard or seen anything about him bending the other three elements. This is remarkable, but it’s not proof of anything._ “And the Avatar is supposed to bring balance,” he added out loud. 

_Mother spoiled you with her stupid stories,_ Azula signed back. 

_And yet,_ Zuko signed, _you’re the one who always wanted to listen to them._

Azula’s hands were flying around like two doves. _But I know what’s real life and what’s a story. Here are the real facts: the last proven Avatar was our stupid great-grandfather. Then a hundred years of nothing but ghosts and rumours. Now we have a man who claims he’s the Avatar, who could single handedly defeat an army, and who can perform miracles that no one else has ever seen before. The pattern of the cycle is right. It all fits. Forget about your fantasies and visions. Lu Ten is dead. Ba Sing Se has fallen. This the Avatar we have and that we deserve._

"If they're fantasies, why did you come along with me?" Zuko snapped.

He slumped down, annoyed. Azula was right, of course she was. But he didn’t know how to explain the feeling inside his gut, or the intensity of the dreams that plagued him every night. He couldn’t solve the puzzle until he had all the pieces.

_There’s something else you need to know,_ he signed. _The Avatar knows we’re here. He and Hakoda’s daughter are coming to see us as soon as they arrive tomorrow._

Azula’s mouth flattened into a thin line. _It's nothing good._

Zuko nodded. He checked once more to make sure the guards weren’t looking, and then pulled out the knotted handkerchief that Sokka had given him. He untied it and showed its contents to Azula: made out of the same dull iron as the shackles around their wrists and feet, it was a ring of keys.

Azula was too smart to ask questions; she understood what it all meant in a flash. _So forget the new moon, we leave tomorrow. The moment the sun rises._

Zuko nodded again. He carefully wrapped the keys up in the square of fabric, making sure the fabric muffled any jingling that would give them away. When he looked up again Azula was signing something else:

_It’s a pity we're going to miss her though. I would have liked a re-match. Katara must have picked up a few tricks from the Avatar over the last two years, it might be a fun challenge._

Azula drew a finger across her throat, over the spot where a blade of ice had nearly taken her life at Ba Sing Se.

_Maybe she'll be the one left with a few interesting scars this time._

_Do not put yourself in any more danger,_ Zuko signed, so ferociously that his thumb spasmed. Azula stuck her tongue out at him, and he rolled his eyes. _And don’t call him that anymore._ _He’s not the Avatar, not to me._

Her tongue still out, Azula rolled her eyes back. _Come on, Zuzu._

_You can call him what you want, but I know his name now,_ Zuko signed. And then he said, out loud, “Everyone else may call him the Avatar, but from now on – to me he's just Unalaq. Unalaq of the Northern Water Tribe.”

安

_A wide plain, dusted with snow, with ribbons of green and violet overhead. A winged lemur chirped, and Zuko followed._

_They came to a copse of trees, where a pillar of white light pierced the sky. They walked to the edges of a glowing pond, and Zuko dropped to his knees._

_“We’re risking our lives because a lemur said so?” someone asked next to him. Zuko shushed him._

_“Just wait.”_

_The lemur, on the gleaming surface of the pool, brushed aside the snow with its claws._

_Zuko smashed the surface of the ice with the rock. The vicious creature came flying out of the trees again, but this time, someone was defending Zuko, and he knocked the dark flying shape back, again and again, and Zuko could concentrate on his work._ _The ice cracked, and again, Zuko plunged into freezing water, flailing with the shock. Bubbles streamed out of his nose; he could feel his heart slowing down from the cold, and he was going to drown, except—_

_A hand reached through the water, pulling Zuko out. "You idiot," said a familiar, petulant voice. "You absolute idiot–"_

_Zuko spat out a mouth of water. He was shivering so hard that his teeth clicked, but still he managed to gasp out: “I saw him–I get it now – the arrows – I could save him —”_

He woke up.

安

The moon was high and Azula was still asleep. Zuko sat up on his cot and watched the dark mass of her sleeping body, monitoring the rise and fall of her breaths. She sounded alright: her breaths came cleanly, and a few days of decent meals had brought some colour back into her face. Her injuries were more minor than he had feared.

He rubbed his hands together and blew on them. He should be resting in preparation for their escape tomorrow, but he felt wide awake. He was crazy, he knew that. He was crazy to have come here. He took his sister on a crazy quest, following century-old breadcrumbs, chasing a person whom everyone sane would agree must be dead by now. 

But everyone who came back from Ba Sing Se went crazy in some way. Zuko threw himself into his obsession. Azula threw herself into her firebending, chasing invulnerability through perfection. Iroh detached himself from the world and all the people in it. _It’s his way of mourning_ , Azula told him once, following one of Zuko’s frustrated outbursts at their uncle’s complacency. _He needs time to regroup and heal. All three of us do._ But while the three of them were retreating from the world, the world didn’t retreat from its path of steadily going to shit. A century after the Northern Water Tribe attacked, two years after the Avatar’s sudden emergence from the ice and snow – why does the world feel more unbalanced than ever?

Zuko thought about the letter sitting in Sokka’s desk drawer right now. Alone in a cold cell, watching the silvery moonlight pour in through his small square window, he wanted nothing more than to read it again. He wanted to smell the paper, touch the faded ink characters. He longed to feel the reach of a human voice across distance and time. He touched the spot over his heart where the letter once sat. He had read it so many times that the words were burned into his memory, and he didn’t need the letter itself to recite them now. Silently, he mouthed the words in the darkness:

_To Monk Gyatso, I’m sorry to leave without saying goodbye in person, but I heard what Monk Pasang was planning, and I’d rather run away than be sent away to the Eastern Air Temple. I don’t know if I’m ready to be the Avatar, not yet. I’m taking Appa south, maybe I’ll go penguin sledding for a while. Don’t worry! Saving the world is a big responsibility, and I won’t forget it. I just need some time alone to think things over. Appa and I will both be back before you even miss us._

_With all my love and respect, Aang._

“Aang,” Zuko repeated to himself.

He had read the letter every night since it had come into his possession, searching for some sign, another clue, a deeper meaning. Monk Gyatso must have been someone close to Aang; Appa was probably the name of Aang’s sky bison, from back in the days when there were still enough bisons that nearly every airbender had one. 

Aang was headed south, to look for penguins.

He had promised not to forget about the world.

He need some time alone to think. How much time? Was a century enough?

When all the meaning had been squeezed out of the words, Zuko spent hours staring at the handwriting itself, looking for some other sense of connection. The two of them had similar handwriting. They both made their downwards strokes the same way: pressing too hard and splaying the brush at the end. Aang wrote his letter in the old classical script; the individual characters were well-formed, but he still had a child’s inaptitude for sizing his lines to the page. Aang had ran out of space on the last line, and his final words – all his love and his respect – had to be squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces, until the final character was barely more than an ink smudge crammed in the page’s corner. Zuko had to squint to even make it out: Aang’s signature. His own name in his own hand. He had a knack for hiding himself away, it seemed.

“What happened to you?” Zuko whispered. “Did you even go penguin-sledding in the end?”

There was no answer, only the whistling wind outside his cell.

Zuko thought about what Sokka had said: hope was an addictive poison. But what did Sokka know about hope? He lived in a high room with real glass windows. He was the prince of a nation in ascendance; all of his family was alive. What use did someone like Sokka have for hope? He didn't need it like Zuko did. Even if they never find Aang, even if he was dead by now, he would have already saved Zuko’s life. Without hope, Zuko would have laid down and died years ago, under the great stone walls of Ba Sing Se, on a muddy field next to his cousin’s body. 

Two years ago, Zuko had tried to save his cousin and he failed. Unalaq came out of Chameleon Bay like some sort of sea monster, and had turned the tide of the battle to favour the Northern Water Tribe. None of them had a chance. Lu Ten died, and Zuko wanted to die too, afterwards, but he didn’t. Once the spirits showed him that he was put in the world to achieve some other purpose, and once he had a purpose, he forced himself to live. He had crawled for a mile and a half on his hands and knees, through the muddy field littered with bodies and scales and viscera, and he kept going until one of the earthbender soldiers found him and brought him to the healers’ tent. The healers said they couldn’t understand how he recovered at all. No one understood how, or why.

Zuko understood now. It was how the universe meant it to be.

“I’m going to find you, Aang,” he said out loud. "I know you're still alive somewhere. And wherever you are, I'll find you. I promise."

It was a promise he hoped he could keep.

* * *

_" **Katara** : You're being too hard on yourself, even if you did run away. I think it was meant to be. If you had stayed, you would have been killed along with all the other airbenders. _

_**Aang** : You don't know that. _

_**Katara** : I know it was meant to be this way. The world needs you now. You give people hope." _

_("The Storm", Season 1 Episode 12)_

**Author's Note:**

> This was designed to be a little puzzle box of a fic – a sort of mystery about a mystery. If you’ve never seen Legend of Korra’s season 2, the wiki page on Unalaq might help. 
> 
> I wrote this pretty quickly as a palate cleanser after finishing “the firebender’s guide to living life after destiny”, because I was tired of wrestling with Big Themes like colonialism and historical narratives and the role of hope in hard times. I wanted to write something that wrestled with plot and fun narrative sleights-of-hand instead. Then I finished this fic and was like “...oh”.
> 
> EDIT: yes, there IS a sequel in the works. I think you can subscribe to the series to get a notification when it's posted
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr, I'm [volkswagonblues.](https://volkswagonblues.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Through the Ice Darkly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111079) by [MyZinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyZinger/pseuds/MyZinger)




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